PVS Introduces New Dismissal System

This September, PVS introduced a new dismissal system to kick off the brand new school year.

Prior to the pandemic, dismissal was conventionally held in the gym, and all students would sit together waiting for their parents to take them home. There would be one or two teachers present with a microphone who would call out the names of students who were leaving. This was the traditional process of leaving PVS at the end of the day, and it had been this way for more than 10 years.

However, the advent of the pandemic has prompted the need for a revisitation of several systems and practices at PVS. The school has come up with new and improved methods for communal prayer, gathering for lunch, and now, dismissal. As it is not possible for so many grades to be gathered in the gym at the same time, each grade stays in their homeroom classrooms during the dismissal period, from 3:30-4:00.

Dr. Malley, the PVS principal, had felt that the original dismissal process was inefficient and unnecessarily time-consuming. “From the beginning of the year, we noticed that the dismissal process was taking a lot longer than normal because we have, Alhamdulillah, a lot of new students,” he said. “With the number of students that we have, the first day of school took almost an hour and a half for dismissal. It was averaging about 45 minutes every day.”

To tackle this problem, it was decided that a new system would be enforced with the help of the high school students currently in the building: the ninth and tenth graders.

Ultimately, the goal of the system is to get as many students to their cars in as little time as possible. In order to meet this goal, the high schoolers walk to the cars in the dismissal line and ask for the names and grades of the students. Then, they are responsible for picking up the students from their homeroom classrooms and taking them back to their cars. This method not only ensures that all of the students from one family are leaving together quickly, but it also gives the high schoolers an opportunity to interact with the underclassmen.

Ahmed Jweihan, a current ninth grader who has been helping out regularly with dismissal, said that he has found the new system beneficial. “The new system is honestly a lot more efficient than before,” he said. “Before this system, it was so much slower and it could take up to 45 minutes to get everyone in their cars.”

Amin Awad, another volunteer from tenth grade, said that he shares a similar opinion as Jweihan. “Before this system was implemented, parents would have to wait before dismissal even starts to pick their kids up early. Now, they don't have to wait that long,” he said.

For now, it seems like the positive feedback from both students and administrators means that this new style of dismissing students is here to stay, and students like Jweihan are happy with the decision. He said, “It’s really good because the students taking other students to their cars get to know them better, so it helps build PVS as a community. The students that help out really like it and it is good exercise, to be honest.”